Introduction

This online exhibition is based on an exhibition of
nautical materials at Indiana University's Lilly
Library. It attempts to offer a small sampling of the
wide variety of books and manuscripts dealing with ships
and the sea during a time before steam-powered vessels.
National boundaries and personal fortunes alike depended
on wooden ships propelled by wind and canvas sails; the
voyages themselves were often fraught with danger and
physical difficulty. It is no surprise, then, that a
vast body of nautical literature was produced during the
period, from practical treatises aimed at improving
ships' performance to imaginative stories of the mystery
and danger of the open sea.

The materials on display here offer a few examples drawn
from that wide array of literature. They range in date
from the seventeenth to the twentieth century, and in
genre from educational handbooks for new sailors to
early editions of classic nautical tales.